


His Choice

by HarricIsLife



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Canon - Book & Movie Combination, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 18:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5137760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarricIsLife/pseuds/HarricIsLife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cedric has to choose, after someone chose for him.</p><p>(AN: Will remain unedited and un-uptaded for the foreseeable future; Although I do love the premise of this, I do not want to proceed with it for the time being.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Choice

**Author's Note:**

> I just thought of this, this morning and I'm sure there will be a lot of inconsistencies and mistakes in here, which I will hopefully edit when I re-read the books and re-watch the movies.
> 
> Mrs. Diggory's name I have tagged Fiona in tribute to one of the best Harry/Cedric fics out there, "Aorist Subjunctive".
> 
> Anyway, here is my *official* first ever story. Hope you guys like it.

Cedric Diggory, the  _original_ Hogwarts Champion, standing a few steps from the Tri-Wizard Cup was arguing with the other Hogwarts Champion, Harry Potter how he doesn't deserve it. Harry was disheveled and dirty, and Cedric had no doubt he looked the same.

"Just take the cup!" said Harry, being noble and stubborn.

"No" said Cedric, equally stubborn.

He stepped over the now stunned acromantula's leg to get beside Harry, his demeanor entirely serious. He did not want to win the tournament when he didn't earn it, he have had help throughout, and more than once from the boy in front of him. He also didn't want Harry to resent him for winning, who was looking at him as if he had gone mad.

But at the same time he really wanted to win, just to see his father's proud face, his mother's beautiful smile, Cho's face shining with admiration, his friends jubilation, just to listen to his house's and perhaps the whole school's cheer.

But no, he did not want to see Harry sound as bitter as he did just then, "Go on," he said difficultly, folding his arms. Besides it would be entirely unfair to Harry if Cedric won as he was the one who had saved his life. This was costing him every ounce of resolution he had, and he did not want to waver on this decision.

He saw the look cross Harry's face, no doubt imagining himself the victor, he buried all his hopes.

"Both of us," Harry said.

Cedric felt confused, "What?"

"We'll take it at the same time. It's still a Hogwarts victory. We'll tie for it."

Cedric stared at Harry. He unfolded his arms.

"You - you sure?" he asked hesitantly, the hope emerging back.

"Yeah," said Harry. "Yeah . . . we've helped each other out, haven't we? We both got here. Let's just take it together."

Cedric couldn't believe his ears; his face splitting into a grin, he thought of kissing Harry right then and there.

"You're on," he said. "Come here."

He grabbed Harry's arm below the shoulder, thinking that it's not a good time for a kiss right now, anyway.

As he led Harry to the plinth where the cup was kept, he saw the whole of Hogwarts cheering, but now for the both of them.

When the had reached it, they both held a hand out over one of the cup's gleaming handles.

"On three, right?" said Harry. "One - two - three -"

Cedric and Harry both grasped the handle.

Instantly, Cedric felt a jerk somewhere behind his navel. He wasn't expecting the cup to be a portkey, though it was very clever that it was. He was getting pulled by it in a howl of wind and swirl of shifting color, Harry at his side.

Cedric felt his feet slam into the ground; as Harry fell forward making Cedric fall as well; his hand let go of the Triwizard Cup at last. He raised his head.

"Where are we?" Harry asked.

Cedric had no clue, and he shook his head. He got up, pulled Harry to his feet, and they looked around. They had left the Hogwarts grounds completely; they had obviously traveled miles - perhaps hundreds of miles - for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. They were standing instead in a dark and overgrown graveyard; the black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to their right. A hill rose above them to their left. Cedric could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.

Cedric looked down at the Triwizard Cup and then up at Harry. "Did anyone tell you the cup was a Portkey?" he asked.

"Nope," said Harry. He was looking around the graveyard. It was completely silent and slightly eerie.

"Is this supposed to be part of the task?"

"I dunno," said Cedric. He felt slightly nervous. "Wands out, d'you reckon?"

"Yeah," said Harry.

They pulled out their wands. Harry kept looking around him.

"Someone's coming," Harry said suddenly.

Squinting tensely through the darkness, they watched the figure drawing nearer, walking steadily toward them between the graves. Cedric couldn't make out a face,  
but from the way it was walking and holding its arms, he could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever it was, he was short, and wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over his head to obscure his face. And - several paces nearer, the gap between them closing all the time - Cedric saw that the thing in the persons arms looked like a baby ... or was it merely a bundle of robes?

Cedric lowered his wand slightly as Harry glanced sideways at him. He shot Harry a quizzical look. They both turned back to watch the approaching figure.

It stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from them. For a second. Harry and Cedric and the short figure simply looked at one another.

And then, without warning, he saw Harry gritting his teeth, his wand slipping from his fingers as he put his hands over his face; he looked as though he was in extreme agony; and now he was on the ground writhing.

Confused, but certain that the stranger was the cause of Harry's pain, Cedric raised his wand, "Who are you? What do you want?" he asked in a shaky voice getting in front of Harry.

He heard a high, cold voice say, "Kill the spare."

His eyes widened in fear, he was going to die. _Not here, not like this_ , he thought, as the rest of his mind went blank.

He saw the stranger's mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone.

 

And then everything went black.

He lay facedown, listening to the silence. He felt he was not alone. Somebody was watching. Somebody else was there.

A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to him that he must exist, he was lying, definitely lying, on some surface. Therefore he had a sense of touch, and the thing against which he lay existed too.

Almost as soon as he had reached this conclusion, Cedric became conscious that he was naked. Convinced that he was not alone, he wished he was clothed.

He wondered whether, as he could feel, he would be able to see. In opening them, he discovered that he had eyes.

He lay in a bright mist, through it was not like mist he had ever experienced before. His surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapor; rather the cloudy vapor had not yet formed into surroundings.

The floor on which he lay seemed to be white, neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be.

He sat up. His body appeared unscathed.

A short distance away he saw robes. He took them and put them on. They were soft, clean, and warm.

Then as though watching from high in the clouds, he saw himself through the mist in that graveyard in mid-air about to fall as the curse struck.

Time seem to have stopped, at least where his body was. Where he was, he was not sure, and not sure if the time was still here as well and he could just move. Now he knew he was not in his body though. Was he possibly his own soul?

As soon as that thought occurred, he became aware of the presence that he felt before. He looked around and saw an entity that looked like a dementor, but he did not feel any depression, so that must not be a dementor. But since he was as he believed just a soul now, could he not feel any depression at all, he wondered.

He did not feel afraid at all, as he tried to get a better look at the entity, which seemed to be smiling at him, as if amused. Though the entity had no face, Cedric still felt aware that it was smiling, and he was certain dementors could not smile, so this entity was not a dementor after all.

"Who are you?" he asked, and how ironic was it that his last words as a body were more or less the same as his first words as a soul.

"I'm Death." the entity said in a voice that could have chilled his bones if it spoke to his body, there was no mouth that moved however, but he definitely heard the entity speak.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Think, you may know what I mean. You are perceptive, aren't you?"

"You're Death. Do you mean as in the Tale of the Three Brothers?"

"Yes, and no."

"What does that mean?"

"You like finding meaning in the smallest of things, don't you?"

"I guess, but you haven't still answered my question."

He felt that the entity chuckled, though he didn't hear it do so.

"I'm not Death as that tale describes, but I still am Death as the tale described."

"You do know that, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever?"

"Does it not?"

"You are infuriating."

"You are quite bold."

"Will you answer any of my questions so that I can understand them."

"Maybe."

Cedric huffed.

"Or perhaps not."

Cedric looked at it as if it was mental.

"Seriously?" he said quite unable to believe that he was asking this, "Did I hurt your feelings?"

"What are feelings anyway?" it asked as if wondering.

"So, I did not hurt your feelings then?" unsure of why he was worried he said, "I'm sorry, if I did."

"You are a sweet boy."

"Am I still a boy, then?"

"You are what you want to be."

"So, if I want to be a girl, I can be?"

"That's what I said, didn't I?"

"But I don't want to be a girl."

"Maybe you won't be."

"Do you want to sit?"

As it said that, a seat materialized out of nowhere, looking as if made of white marble.

Cedric sat down, brimming with more questions than ever before, "Alright, am I a soul?"

"Do you want to be a soul?"

"What does that mean? Everyone has a soul, I just want to know if my body is frozen in time there, then could I be a soul?"

"You may have answered your own question right there."

Growing irritated with the ambiguous answers, Cedric moved away from the entity, and saw himself suspended in mid-air through the mist, wondering what will happen next when the time will unfreeze where his body was. And this time he saw Harry, still clutching his head and just like his body frozen in time, and he felt fear for the first time here, wherever that was, but not for himself, instead for Harry.

"Am I dead?" he asked the entity turning back.

"You did not think that you were?"

"Is Harry going to die?"

"Do you want him to?"

"No, of course not."

"Then he may not."

"How will my not wanting him dead, not make him so?"

"You may learn that, if you want to?"

"Merlin, you are infuriating."

"Is he?"

"What?"

"Is Merlin infuriating?"

"Argh, I just can't believe that Death is messing with me."

The entity outright laughed at that, it was like a rumble, he felt it, he heard it, he was aware of it, but it didn't feel like it.

Cedric was deeply confused, and then he realized what he had just said, "Those were poor choice of words I suppose."

"Suppose they were."

"How do you talk? How do you listen? How do you see? _Can_ you see?" he inquired sitting back on the seat.

"You may find out, if you really want to know."

"I was just curious," he said. "So where am I?"

"Where do you think?"

"I do not know."

"Think."

"I'm dead."

"That you are."

"So is this Heaven, or Hell and you my torturer or is this neither and just life after death?"

"I'm Death."

"You know what I mean."

"Do I?"

"Alright, I think this is afterlife. Though it looks a lot like King's Cross station, but without the trains and all white."

"Oh, does it?"

"So, is that because I have been to King's Cross and my mind is projecting this? Wait, do I even have a mind now? Since I'm a soul."

"Are you a soul?"

"I don't know. You are not clear in your answers."

"Am I not?"

Ignoring yet another amused question, Cedric thought again what might happen to Harry next.

"So where exactly is Harry and my body? Where is that graveyard"

"Oh, you will find out?"

"How?"

"Just ask the right question."

"Which is what?"

"That's not it."

"Who killed me, then? And what did he do to Harry?"

"You will soon learn the answer, one way or the other."

"So, that was not the question I needed to ask?"

"No, it was not."

"Will your answer to that particular question make sense to me?"

"I do not know that, but perhaps you may understand when I give the answer to you."

"So the answer will be clear then?"

"Perhaps it will be."

Cedric thought about what he should ask, he had too many questions and he may keep asking them forever without getting any understandable answer at all.

"Forever," he muttered.

"Is that a question?"

"No, but this is," he said. "If time seem to have stopped wherever Harry is, Is it flowing here or stopped here too, or are we just sitting somewhere out-of-time?"

"Why do you think that the time had stopped just in that graveyard?"

"Has it not?"

"Oh, it has."

"Oh, you mean the time in the entire living world has stopped. Well, I knew that, I was just asking about what I can see."

"You can see, whoever you want to see no matter where they are, if you want."

"I can?"

"Of course you can."

As the entity said that, the mist through which he could see Harry and himself, seem to shift a little and suddenly he could see Hogwarts, once again as if watching from up in the clouds.

The Quidditch Pitch turned into the Maze coming into sharp focus and he could suddenly make out the faces of Cho and his parents, Dumbledore and Professor Sprout, his friends and Harry's friends. Every face looking intent on finding the result of the tournament, now that only the Hogwarts' champions were part of it. That made him wonder once again, what will happen to Harry. Will he die, and join him here? Will he escape death again, as he had done a few times now? Cedric glanced back to the graveyard, where Harry was on the ground, his head in his hands.

He looked back to the Quidditch stands, the heads of the other two schools both looked quite put out. Madam Pomfrey was frozen in moment over Krum's body with his parents around him, and that made him wonder why Krum attacked him in the first place, since Cedric thought he was a decent bloke. He could also see Fleur sitting with her sister and parents, throwing a dark look at Krum, who Harry had perhaps rightly assumed was also attacked by Krum. He could see Moody moving, and he looked anxious even when he was frozen in moment.

And Cedric suddenly wanted to be with them, his friends, his family, to be with Cho. He looked at the graveyard again and he wished both he and Harry were back at Hogwarts, protected by it. Wherever that graveyard was, it was not a place to be at, even less a place to die at. And he was more scared than he had ever been before, for what will happen to Harry. What will that murderer do next? He did not want him to die. He did not wanted to die himself. But, now he was dead, and Harry could soon be too, and all he could do as he stared at both the frozen moments, was wish for that to not happen, wish for the protection of Hogwarts for himself, for Harry. And he just wanted to go back in time and not touch that cup and not let Harry touch it too. But he was dead, he could not turn back time, even if he wanted too, no matter what the entity said. There were countless people who had died over the years who could've done it, but none had, which means it was not possible.

But, he just wanted to be with his dad, with his mum, getting pampered, making them proud. Wanted to be with Cho, with Harry kissing them, smiling at them. He wanted to be with Scott, with Peter and with Sebastian, listening to them make fun of how quiet he was. He wanted to be with Serina teasing him about whatever. He did not wanted to die, why had he? He had done nothing wrong, he had been fair, and loyal, and noble. He didn't attack anyone, he was not in any fights with anyone, he was friendly with everyone. He didn't judge people as hastily as he once judged Harry anymore. He had been a good student, he had gotten nice grades in all his subjects, he made sure that his teachers liked him, he was sure even Snape did. He was a good seeker, he even defeated Harry once, which he knew he didn't deserve to, so he wanted the match to restart. He was nice and selfless and loyal and brave too sometimes. So what if he thought about Harry when he was with Cho sometimes, he never cheated on her, he really liked her. He had been modest, when he was chosen champion. So what if he was happy, that he was a champion, he would've brought Hufflepuff glory and to Hogwarts too, but now he was dead and he didn't deserve to die, he didn't wanted to. As it turned out he was also a spare to someone to kill off, who probably wanted Harry, to do he didn't know what.

He was not aware that tears were streaming down his face, until he felt his eyes burn, which he distantly wondered how that could be.

He turned to face the entity again.

"I want to be with them."

"You are aware that you actually won't be with any of them."

"I don't care," he shouted, "I didn't wanted to die, I just want to be with them."

"Ask the question," the entity said as if in a resigned voice.

And the question came to him unbidden, and he thought why he hadn't thought of it before.

"Why are you here?"

"I'm here to help you decide."

"How?"

"You asked if you were a soul. You are. And if you want to remain one or not is entirely up to you."

"I don't."

"Are you sure about that?" the entity said raising its left hand and through the mist someone else emerged, and Cedric's eyes got huge.

"Gramma," he said rising.

"Cedric," his grandmother smiled at him.

He ran and hugged her tightly, "I missed you," he mumbled onto her chest.

She ran a hand through his hair, and kissed his forehead, "And me you, my child," she said.

And Cedric felt torn.

**Author's Note:**

> You have no idea how much I cried writing this.
> 
> I didn't include Death the entity in the characters tag because of my often changing beliefs in its existence.
> 
> Sorry for the punctuation and grammatical errors.
> 
> A lot of stuff included here is intentionally taken word for word from the books, especially some of the dialogue.
> 
> I had no idea that this would become this long. It honestly was a short fic in my head. :/
> 
> I also had no idea of the date I posted this on, it's Sirius Black's birthday. 0_0


End file.
